This morning I was spending some sweet quality time with my squishable water-filled newborn. Sunlight was filtering in through the window of my cozy bedroom and I was sitting next to her on the bed. She looked so precious and perfect except for a bright red gash, newly carved into her pudgy cheek.

“Stop scratching yourself baby!” I urged, “I think we’re gonna have to start calling you Scar Face.”

I’ve filed her nails. We’ve tried the little mittens and the pjs with the fold-over sleeves on the ends. She gets the mittens off like a fat little cross-eyed Houdini with dark duck down for hair. She spends her life trying to punch through those fold-over sleeves. They are a great burden to her.

Looking at her latest injury, I thought of the perfect solution – plastic face shields like you can buy for your PDA but made for babies! I know, right? Best idea ever. They would stick onto the baby’s face with a light, dermatologist-tested adhesive, completely covering baby’s face except for the eyes, mouth and nostrils. They would be transparent so you could still see your baby’s face, although it would look a little like you were viewing it through a window that it was being smooshed up against. But who doesn’t think it’s cute when tiny little kids smoosh their faces up against windows? Tell me. Who?

Then the baby could scratch and scratch all she wanted without doing any damage. She’d be happy and ready for her next photo shoot at a moment’s notice.

If anyone’s interested in buying this idea for mass production and sale, please email me. Serious inquiries only.

The FTC is in the process of placing new standards on bloggers who review products for compensation. They do not distinguish between monetary compensation and compensation by way of product samples. I’m not sure if product samples that are then given away as prizes will be included in this forbidden zone of review topics. I have done this several times in the past , reviewed a product for my blog and then passed along the review copy to my readers in the form of a giveaway.

I’m all about full disclosure. If Laylee were providing me monetary compensation to blog about how cute she looked in her ballet recital, I’d for SURE let you know. It’s kind of the other way around though. I think I paid about 3 million dollars to see her in that green tutu for 5 minutes and it was worth every penny.

If a company is compensating me to write about their products, I sure as heck am not going to act like I just happened to discover this lovely $200 set of maternity clothes by happenstance. Your trust is more important to me than that. But if I gush about it, the gushing is sincere.

This blog is primarily the documented journey of my life as a mother, a woman and an attempted humorist. Within those roles, there are often products I use and love and want to tell you about. Sometimes I do. Nearly every day I am also offered free products to talk about on my blog. I say “no” to the VAST majority of these offers either because I don’t think I’ll like the product, I feel like my blog is turning into something too commercial (It was never meant to be a “product review” site.) or because I just don’t feel like doing it that day.

My policy is this —

I will never review a product for monetary compensation. I personally believe that being paid cash to endorse a product on a personal blog is not in line with my values or the intent of this writing outlet.

I will never accept free product with the understanding that I will write a positive review about the product. First of all, I try not to accept a product unless I think there is a good chance I will really like it and want to tell my readers about it. On the few occasions that I have received a product I did not particularly like, I have either offered to send it back to the company, given it away with no review attached hoping someone else would like it, or given a review that points out its failings.

Where book reviews are concerned, I do not talk about books I do not like unless I’m trying to offer a buyer-beware type of warning. I do not always point out that a particular book was sent to me by Harper Collins or some other publisher as a review copy, because of the low price of the items and the frequency with which they are sent to me, but I only review about 1 in 10 books sent to me. I don’t want to waste my time talking about a book that I wouldn’t recommend anyway. Now you know. Some of the books I review are sent to me by authors, book publishers or publicity firms. I will give honest reviews regardless of how I obtained the book.

The practice of receiving something, reviewing it and then giving it (or one of its clones) away has three benefits:

1. I can give an accurate review of a product only if I actually get my hands on it and try it out. Isn’t it nice to hear that I wore those maternity clothes and washed them a ton and they still didn’t ball or pill?

2. When my readers get free stuff, I usually get a boost in readership, which I like.

3. I love to get great free stuff and therefore love to give it away. Isn’t it so much more fun to plan and pick out the gifts you’ll give for Christmas than to see what you’re going to get. I, like Oprah before me, really enjoy finding something great and giving it away to someone who’ll love it. I believe my serotonin levels rise when someone who desperately needs a stroller gets one for free because I was able to give it away on my blog.

So there you have it. All reviews and giveaways on this blog express my actual and true opinions. If I say I really like something, I really really like it. I do not pretend to be an expert in consumer safety so if your little Jimmy wins a trike on this site and then the handlebars fall off, resulting in catastrophic facial injury, I am not liable for his sad demise. I am not Consumer Reports or an independent safety testing agency. I did not, for example, attempt to light my maternity clothes on fire to see if they would burst into flame.

I just periodically want to tell you about stuff I like.

Before I announce the winner, I want to let you all know that now through January 31st, Daring Young Mom readers can get a 10% discount on YNAB software by entering the coupon code “daring” on the YNAB.com site. Jesse was impressed with the response you all gave and wanted to help out because there are so many of us who are struggling with finances right now. Yay Jesse!

And the winner of the You Need A Budget software giveaway is Donna, commenter number 29. Please contact me and I’ll get you set up with your prize.

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Usually I give stuff away on this site because someone sends it to me or asks me to review it. Today I’m reviewing a product because I love it LOVE IT and I’m giving it away because I asked the creator if I could have a copy to give away. So here goes the longest review ever with a little embarrassing personal history thrown in.

Dan and I have never been great at budgeting. I was taught to budget and balance a checkbook when I was really young. My dad’s an accountant for the love of chicken and I vividly remember him sitting at the kitchen table paying bills and balancing the checkbook. He and my mom were always careful with money and they taught me to be as well.

Then college hit and I got a bit lax. I learned to only start thinking about money when it ran out and I was always confused. “Like, how come my check totally bounced?” Now, I’m a smart girl but I guess I just decided that I was too smart to waste time tracking every penny. I always did okay, made my rent and tuition payments on time and graduated college with very little debt. I think I only called my parents for a massive bailout package once or twice.

Then after graduation, Dan and I got married. I was supporting him through school, working full time while he held down a part-time job. Suddenly the expenses were shared and the income was more than I’d had before. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination but for college students we were doing fine. We had a TWO bedroom apartment with no holes in the walls and a non-shag carpet. I didn’t think we needed to be strict with money.

I planned on staying home once we had kids but I was nervous about how it would feel to be financially dependent on another person. Somehow I got Dan to agree to let me plan and budget our money. I thought that being “in charge” would help me feel like I had a stake in our finances even though I wasn’t the one bringing home the bacon once I became a mom.

But I never really got a handle on the situation. I tried budgeting software, Excel spreadsheets, using a cash-only budget, where when I ran out of cash I ran out of spending power. I bounced from plan to plan but never found a good fit.

Dan and I have grown to equate money with fear. We don’t know how much we have and we don’t always know how much is coming. To me, unexpected income is “free money” and although we (especially Dan) feel a sense of duty to put it towards upcoming major expenses, we want to spend some for fun too and then end up feeling guilty about it. We don’t really have any debt and we have a good amount of savings but we’re not progressing and it seems like we dip more and more into our emergency reserves because our paycheck didn’t quite cover what we spent the previous month.

We make a good living but feel guilty when we spend money on wants because we don’t know if we should and we’re always worried that we’re not managing things right. Financial lame-ish-ness is one of the major causes of stress in our marriage. I’m in charge so whenever we want to buy something, Dan will ask, “Do we have it in the budget?” and I’ll look down at my shoes and say, “We have it in the bank, I think.” And he’ll decide we probably can’t afford it. But then sometimes I’ll buy it anyway and then we’ll be happy for a minute with a vague feeling of guilt. It’s not okay.

So a couple of months ago my sister called me ranting and raving about the new budgeting software she’s using. It’s called YNAB, which stands for You Need a Budget. I winced at the B-word but decided to hear her out. By the end of our conversation I was convinced that I’d at least give it a try, knowing that they offer a money-back guarantee.

Well, it’s $50 I won’t be getting back because I cannot say enough positive things about this software. It’s easy to use. It lets me feel like I’m controlling my money, not the other way around. It’s intuitive. It’s fast and simple to set up. It’s complex enough to do everything I need it to do without being so confusing I want to beat my head against the keyboard, a problem I’ve had with budgeting software in the past. It’s created for families, not businesses and that’s very apparent, although my sister uses it to track her business expenses as well. It comes with instructional material that focuses on living within your means, building up a buffer so you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and really being accountable to yourself and your spouse.

The company is small and they really want to get it right. They have helpful forums and great response time. When I posted a question, I received a personal email and a fix for my problem within a few short hours, even though it was on a weekend.

I set up all the categories in my budget and then Dan and I have a meeting to go over everything. There has been no tension in our meetings, just sort of a giddy feeling of relief. Relief that we have a plan. Relief that there is enough money to do the things that are really important. Relief that he can finally trust me with our family finances.

We have a category for fun money for each of us and one for clothes. We can’t put a lot of money into these categories each month but the money accrues so next month if I haven’t spent my $10, I’ll have $20 and eventually I’ll be able to buy a whole sweater. In the past if I’d budgeted $10 for clothes, I’d rush to spend it so I wouldn’t lose it. The same thing goes with birthday money. I knew that if I didn’t spend my $20 from Grandma right away, it would be absorbed and end up paying for pull-ups or something so I’d buy a $20 piece of uselessness just so I could spend the money on me.

Now I just add my birthday money to my fun-money budget and watch it grow.

This accumulation feature allows us to do things like set up small budgets for several different projects without needing actual separate accounts. I have an account for haircuts and I budget a third of a hair cut each month so I can go in and have it done every three months with no worry about whether or not we can afford for me to live without split ends.

But if I overspend one of my categories, I’m not penalized for it specifically the next month. If Magoo suddenly outgrows all his clothes and I go $100 over-budget on the kids’ clothing category, $100 is taken from the OVERALL budget the next month. I love this feature because sometimes things come up and I don’t want to feel like if I overspend in an area, I’m toast in that area for months. I like that I can spread out the squeeze.

My favorite thing about it is the honesty. Sometimes in the past, when I’d go shopping, I’d hurry to get everything put away before Dan got home so I wouldn’t have to explain to him what I’d purchased and where the money came from. When he’d ask me a week later if the shirt I was wearing was new, I’d mumble something and he’d wonder if I had some whole new secret wardrobe he’d paid for with our life savings without knowing it.

Now I come home from shopping and show him everything with excitement because I know that he knows that it’s all budgeted and accounted for.

We’re achieving goals. We’re learning to have positive feelings about money. We’re strengthening our relationship. We’re gaining self-control and security about our future.

You should too.

Seriously. Go check out the site. Read what they’re all about. I know I can’t be the only one who finds herself at war with money.

If you’d like to win a free copy of YNAB Pro, and I’d highly recommend ordering Pro, leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw a winner on Saturday night. We saved more than $50 the first week we used it by cutting unnecessary spending and noticing strange charges on various accounts we hadn’t been monitoring closely enough. So even if you don’t win, it’s worth the investment. Good luck!

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It’s time again for the most fun ever. Please take a few minutes to fill out this reader survey. It helps my advertising network sell ad space on the site if they can tell Tillamook that all my readers eat cheese 3 times a day and other such nonsense. When results come in, I’ll type them up so you can see who else is reading along with you.

At times, I have been known to spend money in a fashion similar to that of an imbibing mariner. This combined with my hatred of budgets and our need to put a new roof on the house has me and Dan taking drastic measures to save money. Each week we withdraw a small amount of cash from the bank to spend on groceries and other non-bill expenses. We spend the money carefully and when it runs out, we’re done. Period.

We’ve been doing it for a few weeks now and it’s amazing how much more aware I am of my usual spending habits when I run out of cash partway through the week and have to stay home to avoid buying the books, pomegranate drinks and “sale items” that seem to leap into my hands whenever I step out my front door.

The second week of our cash diet, Dan came home with a small stack of money. Since I do most of the family shopping, I get most of the cash and it came time for Dan to hand it over. He placed the twenties where any good husband would put several bills he was giving to his main lady friend. I giggled and forgot about it.

At Trader Joes that afternoon, I got up to the register to pay for my groceries and noticed that all my cash was missing from my wallet! Ack. I had just enough left from the first week to pay for my things and then I began to search frantically for the missing money. Up and down every aisle I dragged the kids, combing the ground with my eyes for a flash of non-edible green. NOTHING.

Sadly, I headed out to the car, loaded the kids and groceries and buckled my own seatbelt. Ouch. What was that? My shirt was so itchy. I pulled it away from my chest and looked down. Bingo!

It was a huge relief. I was relieved to have found the week’s money and relieved that Laylee was too young to ask me why I had lost it in such a strange place. I can only imagine the scene at the store if I’d discovered my lost allowance while at the register and dived in to retrieve it. From now on, I think I’ll use a wallet like a normal person.

With a leettle expert advice, we’ve decided the new roof can wait for a few years while we save up to pay for it in cash. If things get really bad, we may send Laylee and Magoo to live in the attic holding pots and pans. Maybe they’ll make friends with the rats who will one day repay Laylee by making her a beautiful ball gown, which I will subsequently tear to shreds.

So now, rather than adding a high interest second mortgage payment to our monthly expenses, we need to save an extra $400 per month for the next 3 years. I am personally scared spitless considering I feel like we’re living close to the edge of our income as it is.

I’ve started to institute some cost-saving measures around the house and wondered if you had any other ideas to help me out.

1. You’re just not that into it — You may think you are now, in light of the amazing sale going on at J.C. Penny. But take a moment before you buy that rhinestone encrusted t-shirt or 3 TBSP capacity motorized jell-o grinder.
-Picture yourself carrying the item home.
-Where will it go in your house?
-How often will you use it?
-Tug and pull at the fabric. Is it likely to stretch out wide and shrink to the flattering level of -just above your belly button with only a few washings?
-Do you have anything at home that could do the job just as well with a little creativity?
-Would you put it on your birthday wish list and be happy with it as your gift?

In the end, if you wouldn’t be tempted to buy it at full price, don’t snatch it up just because it’s on sale.

2. Just because the recipe says you need it, doesn’t mean you do — I have always been one for following a recipe to the letter, especially the first time around. If it says to buy Kalamata olives to the tune of $5 per jar, I listen to the recipe. Not anymore my friends. There are tons of great substitutions you can make. Also, the more you make from scratch, the more you save. It doesn’t have to be hard. This book is helping me immensely. I’m also saving a lot with The Grocery Game.

3. Form an accountability group, preferably with someone who is effected by your spending habits — Dan and I have started meeting each night to discuss how much we’ve spent each day and what we have to show for it. If I know I’m going to have to say out loud, “I bought myself another brown purse because this one has more pockets and ooo look how much more current the style is than the other 10 brown purses collecting dust in my closet. IT HAS GOLD RIVETS!” I’m 67% more likely to leave the purse on the rack. I may be sad for 30 seconds but by the time I get back to my car, I feel mighty powerful for just walking away.

4. To quote Mir, “Friends don’t let friends pay full retail.” Subscribe to wantnot.net for great deals on things you were planning to buy anyway.

5. Have you ever heard of the library? – Don’t buy every book you ever thought of reading. Fully half the books I buy end up going back to the used bookstore as soon as I’ve finished. I waste buckets of money doing this every year.

Now share your tips, I beseech you.

reasons: rolling half-chewed apples, playdates, future Oscar wins, pigs feet

When we moved into this house, it was with the understanding that the mangled filthy mini-blinds would vacate immediately, if not sooner.

I could have cleaned them 7 months ago but I knew we would be replacing them AT ANY  MOMENT so I didn’t bother.   My solution has been to keep them up at all times so I don’t have to constantly be faced with the previous owner’s dinner splatter from the great spaghetti adventure of 1991.

Consequently, the squirrels in the forest behind our house are constantly faced with me shlepping around in my bathrobe.  But dude, they’re naked and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them putting on deodorant.  So why don’t they get some blinds and stop yelling at me?

Our heating bill for the last 2 months indicates that any measure we could take to reduce energy consumption would be for the benefit of society and may keep us from losing the farm.  So we’ve decided to close the blinds at night to help keep the heat in. 

It’s actually working but tonight I closed them too early.  I sat at dinner, staring at a flat spider body, pressed perfectly between the metal blinds like a daisy in a poetry book, only spookier and less appetizing.  I stared at it for 10 minutes before I got up to get a paper towel.  The spider is gone now and I’m even thinking about taking some Pine-sol and a blow-torch to those things.

Considering that we’re now counting all of our expenses in terms of hours of preschool, making do with the blinds we have may be our ticket to Laylee’s pre-K education.